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The Human Rights Magazine Editorial Board invite manuscripts on pre-selected themes as well as suggested topics. Authors should reach out to the Managing Editor, Melissa Hodek, before writing or submitting articles.

Mission

Human Rights is the official publication of the American Bar Association’s Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice. The magazine has an international readership that includes many prominent figures in the arena of human rights and civil liberties. Published quarterly, the award-winning magazine circulates to approximately 3,000 CRSJ members, academic institutions, libraries, and other interested readers. The magazine provides information and analysis that will ultimately help leaders, scholars, and activists protect and expand individual rights. Recent issues have covered criminal justice and injustice, environmental justice, sexual identity and gender orientation, and the law of war.

Style

The writing style for Human Rights should be brisk and straightforward—more readable and informal than that of a law review article. The magazine’s readers demand a clear rendering of legal issues and are keenly interested in the law’s impact on social concerns. Readership includes lawyers from all areas of practice, as well as legal scholars with a sophisticated understanding of the law. Authors should carefully research and craft their work, keeping in mind the legal issues involved in the topic to avoid addressing issues only from a social justice perspective.  Authors should consider the following style guidelines and consult back issues.

  • Use in-text case citations only when necessary. Human Rights does not use footnotes or endnotes.
  • Strive for an interesting opening and closing.
  • Use the active voice rather than the passive voice.
  • Use gender-neutral language.
  • Avoid long quotations.
  • Avoid surplus verbiage.
  • Avoid using a long word when a short one will do.
  • Avoid using a foreign phrase, scientific word, or jargon if a more common English equivalent exists.
  • Avoid overworked figures of speech. Avoid overcapitalization. 

What to Include

Include in the manuscript file a 2-sentence bio and a 25–40-word abstract that gives a summary of your article or sidebar. Please also send either a JPG or PNG color photo cropped into a square. The recommended dimensions for a profile photo are a minimum of 1000x1000 pixels, and the maximum file size that can be uploaded is 4MB.

Submission and Publication

The magazine publishes quarterly and focuses on pre-selected themes. Articles are original. Past themes include the fortieth anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, HIV/AIDS topics, the separation of church and state, international human rights, children’s rights, and the rights of indigenous peoples. Upcoming themes include the new American family, food, prison, and civil rights. The chair of the editorial board and the staff editor invite  manuscripts on these topics as well as general theme suggestions. Authors should talk with the chair or the staff editor before writing or submitting articles, however. This allows authors to tailor their pieces to the specific needs of the magazine.

Feature articles are generally 1,500 words. Shorter, sidebar-length pieces are around 750 words.

Please submit articles as Word doc attachments to [email protected]. Please include your full contact information with your submission.

Upon receipt, articles are reviewed by the editor who solicited your article for quality, style, length, and adherence to the topic. This editor may contact you regarding edits or problems. Then articles are sent to a peer review board for examination. After board approval, the articles are copy-edited, prepared for publication, and sent to authors for their review. Deadline pressures make it impossible to share final typeset proofs with authors. The editor retains the right to change titles, add subheads, select illustrations, and make deletions to conform to space limitations. Please note that all articles are subject to acceptance by the peer review board. Individual editorial board members cannot guarantee publication.

Publication Agreements and Reprints

Authors are asked to sign a publication agreement that grants the ABA the exclusive right of first publication, the nonexclusive right to reprint, and the right to use the work in other ABA media—including electronic, print, and other. To request permission to reprint an article that appeared in the Human Rights magazine, please see the ABA's Reprints and Permissions page.

Contact Information

Melissa Hodek
Managing Editor
[email protected]